I’m doing some testing for the heat distortion effects in my senior project. Since most of the heat distortion in the piece will come from vehicle exhaust, I wanted to try to create an effect driven by a stock element or FX simulation. This matches the reference photography below.

I’m experimenting with using smoke elements because they are a great way to visualize movement of air from an engine. I’m starting with a stock element from ActionVFX and combining it with some additional noise for detail.

The effect has three main components. The first is a larger distortion with little detail to get some initial warping at a macro level. Next there is a blur driven by the same distortion map for variance. The third is a smaller, higher octave noise to get the high frequency distortion.

I’ll continue further testing as we move forward with the project. I want to try it with some custom FX simulations for each shot to get the overall shape looking correct. I also want to try doing this in Nuke with its particle system.